The nameless ancestors who had come with the group were few in number now, having been whittled down by the long, brutal slog of the battle. Ignoring their wounds, they pressed their own burning flesh against the giant boulder.
The intense heat caused the rock to distort, looking as if it were vibrating out of existence.
Baal wanted an explosion? Fine. They would give him one.
They sealed their combined fury within the stone, waiting for the most brilliant eruption imaginable. The battle that had once ended this land had been marked by an explosion; it was only fitting that this reenactment followed the same path.
This was the plan formulated by Qual-Kehk. Altering an illusory past was never the right way to face the future.
"It seems I underestim—"
Baal's voice cut in and out, distorted by massive static, like a phone call through a failing line.
"Goodbye, past," Olungus whispered.
Even the armor crafted by Bul-Kathos began to melt. It wasn't designed to withstand a strike fueled by the sacrifice of a physical body and a lifetime's worth of fury.
The raging flames of his anger flared one last time before being entirely absorbed into the stone. The boulder shrank at an incredible speed, and from within, the sound of Baal's body being crushed under the pressure began to echo.
In the Underground Battlefield...
Helab's armor was gone. In the heat of his frenzied punching, the Conqueror had somehow torn off every piece of protection he owned.
The Maiden of Lust lay below him, her body pressed into the earth like a slurry of pulverized meat. Yet, somehow, her form managed to maintain a vague semblance of its original shape.
"Cry for me!" Helab roared, his voice sounding deranged. "Wail! Beg for mercy!"
He repeated the words like a mantra, his fists never slowing. The thud of his heavy blows against the Maiden's face fell like a rhythmic drumbeat, providing a tempo for the sounds of slaughter echoing through the tunnels.
The fight had taken on a bizarrely operatic, almost rock-and-roll quality. The rhythm was soaring, the movements violent. It was a wild, blood-pumping display of savagery.
Helab didn't even notice that his fists were being coated in a shimmering purple, arcane energy. The Maiden's toxic blood soaked his entire body.
In Helab, Fury—the power of the Barbarian—didn't manifest in a typical way. His anger was his vitality. However, the Conqueror's emotions were slowly beginning to drift toward a strange, hollow calmness. Once he became completely calm, his defeat would be imminent.
"Cluck... cluck..."
A sound like a hen laying an egg escaped the Maiden of Lust's throat. One could just barely tell she was laughing. Even as a pile of broken meat, she laughed. Whether it was out of disdain or mockery, no one could tell. She laughed as she swayed her broken arms, looking like a child reaching for a hug.
Even while being pummeled, her behavior was profoundly abnormal.
"Spider-Man! Little Peter! Help me, quickly!"
Constantine was shrieking like a panicked rooster as he dodged the lunge of a demon. His movements were clumsy and undignified, yet they possessed a strange harmony. It looked as if he was born to be exactly this pathetic.
"Shut up! It hasn't been that long, and I've already saved you three times!" Spider-Man yelled back, his words coming out with the speed of a professional rapper. "Can't you act like a normal person for once? Is your only job to make sure I have to deal with double the pressure?!"
Talking while fighting came naturally to the wall-crawler, though it was a bit annoying for everyone else. Fortunately, Constantine was even more annoying, so he didn't take offense.
Spider-Man fired a web at the demon pursuing Constantine. The web successfully yanked the investigator away from the demon's jagged claws just before the webbing was incinerated by a stray fireball.
The Chatty Hero had met the Scumbag, and in terms of practical action, the hero was definitely being outmaneuvered. If not for that "Great Power, Great Responsibility" motto constantly drumming in his head, Peter might have been tempted to toss Constantine into a pile of demons.
"Haven't you noticed? That Conqueror seems to have been charmed," Constantine said as he crawled out from under a web-line, reaching a momentarily safe spot. Spider-Man's webs were still reliable against these lesser demons.
He took a moment to light a cigarette. His tone was leisurely, a sharp contrast to his frantic scrambling just seconds ago.
The demon chasing him slammed into a web-trap, ending up bound like a caterpillar on the floor.
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